


A Little Bit Wonderful

by RZKing



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, No Magic AU, No plot just fluff, University AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 16:59:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5172128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RZKing/pseuds/RZKing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newlyweds Regina and Emma have settled into their lives as a mayor and a returning university student, respectively.  Emma contemplates the meaning of "home" in the haze of a rainy Saturday morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Bit Wonderful

The morning winter rain drummed soothingly on the roof above Emma’s head; it was a sound she’d grown to love waking up to: the way it slowly faded in as a gentle nudge awake.  It was muted, and far away.  It was a conscious reminder of the walls and dry clothes that separated her from an urban wilderness.

It wasn’t always the case.  There were many days and nights a younger Emma would spend as a runaway, armed only with her ratty Converses, and a windbreaker, if she planned ahead.  It made her hate the rain, then: the way she breathed in frost, wringing her hands together as she waited for her skin to go numb against the unrelenting frigid drops that spattered her like machine gun fire.

The cold alone was hell, but there were times when the freedom and isolation were worth it.

What Emma Swan could never have anticipated, however, was that she would meet two people who would make being alone a possibility more nightmarish than death.  Every other home she’s lived in before now was like wearing your eight year old cousin’s clothes, or putting on underwear over your pants.  But she could fit into Regina and Henry’s lives like a drop of pigment into a bowl of water.  She could wear this house like it was her own skin.

Maybe it scared her a little bit, how well-settled she was:  how easily roots began to grow without her permission.  She denied it for a long time, but one day she admitted, very quietly, to herself, that she was home.  Maybe she shed a silent tear or two in private, but she’d never admit it.

Now, when she woke in a bubble of walls, blankets, and body heat, this was a moment Emma knew she wouldn’t trade for any glimmer of freedom she’d get high off of as a foster runaway.

She stretched her starfish-positioned arms out… only to inadvertently reach across the queen bed and smack a pyjama-covered arm.

“Ow,” Regina replied as a reflex, though the tap from Emma’s limp hand hadn’t remotely hurt.  She placed her open book on her lap and scooted back to sit straighter, hiking the pillow she angled against her lower back higher up.  “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” she teased, brushing a lock of Emma’s hair from her face.

“Nn,” Emma scrunched her face and opened her eyes blearily.  She retracted her elbow and propped herself up on her hip, her side resting against the headboard as she faced her wife.  “S’ry.”

Regina offered a small shrug.  “At least I wasn’t holding coffee this time.”  Regina had, in fact, learned to always set her mugs down on the nightstand when she wasn’t actively taking a sip.  It wasn’t something she’d had to worry about before Emma was in the equation.  The way that woman sprawled when she slept was mildly hazardous, but endearing nonetheless.

Emma exhaled sharply through her nose and turned to look at her clock.  8:34.  “Hey,” Emma turned back, lacing her fingers through Regina’s.  “Why’re you still in bed?”

Regina gave a smaller version of her trademark Prune Face (what Emma had taken to call the face Regina makes when she purses her lips and narrows her eyes a bit).  “Because it’s Saturday.”

“Oh thank God,” Emma laid her head back on the headboard and closed her eyes.  “I was starting to think the world was coming to an end and Madam Mayor Mills had _lost track of time_.”

“Hey, I may be a civil servant but that hardly makes me Baron von Instetten,” Regina huffed, marking her book and setting it on the nightstand.

“What,” Emma blankly stared back at her.

“Oh, never mind.”

Emma let it go and leaned forward to tuck an errant strand of Regina’s hair behind her ear.  “Okay, but where’s my kiss?”

Regina, having to leave for work before Emma embarked on her first class, had a habit of giving Emma a kiss every morning, either before she left when Emma was still asleep, or when Emma woke up, whichever came first.  Regina didn’t know this, but Emma would often wake up just before this kiss, but pretend to still be sleeping peacefully until her wife left.

Regina rolled her eyes, another trademark expression of hers that Emma swore she saw Henry beginning to pick up.  “Are you sure?  I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”

“Join the club,” Emma laughed and leaned in.

“Fine,” Regina feigned reluctance, but Emma felt the stretch of Regina’s smile against her lips after she kissed her.

And yes, their breath tasted sour, and Emma’s foot was asleep, and Regina needed to go to the bathroom, and both of them needed to wash their faces, but that kiss was Emma’s textbook definition of “home”.

They couldn’t stay under the blankets and ignore the rest of the world forever.  Henry will inevitably stumble out of bed expecting pancakes (which had recently become a Saturday morning tradition).  A member of Emma’s project-group-turned-actual-friend-group, be it Mary Margaret, David, Ruby, or Killian, will almost certainly text her with a crisis, or spontaneous hangout invitation.  And without fail, some municipal employee with no comprehension of weekends will mark an email to Regina as “urgent”.

In short, the world will turn on without the courtesy to wait for them.  But Emma felt more and more like the team she formed with Regina and Henry made catching up to it less awful.  Maybe even a little bit wonderful.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm honestly spilling with ideas (that have actual plots) for this AU, but since I haven't posted to the collection yet, I felt obligated to just put something there ASAP; I also wanted to practice writing predominantly Emma's POV, and... I just really wanted to write about my two favourite wives being cozy. So here you go. Fluff for the soul. I hope you enjoyed this little snapshot of Emma's life off-campus as much as I enjoyed writing it!


End file.
